Since every person has two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, sixteen great-great-grandparents and so on, the ahnentafel numbering system used in the Ancestry of Clifford Masten Haring has proven best. It will allow each of these people a specific identifying number, and will allow unlimited numbers if your search extends further into the past.
It is not prudent to post information on living persons to the internet, and our main interest is Dutch heritage. These two factors determined where we should begin.
In the ahnentafel numbering system, every male has an even number, and every female has an odd number. Any given male's father has a number that is double his, with his mother having the next consecutive number, which is of course an odd number.
This ensures that there will always be an unused number waiting for any mystery person to be discoverd, as for instance, our great-grandma Catherine Bross's parents. Catherine Bross has the number 5, and numbers 10 and 11 are there waiting for her parents to surface. In addition, if more information from the Netherlands is ever discovered, those numbers from 1024 and on are available. |
